


Remnants of You and Me

by navaan



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Birds of Prey (Comic), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Canon Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Episode: s04e18 Eleven-Fifty-Nine, F/M, Female Friendship, Fix-It of Sorts, Grief/Mourning, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 10:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7044487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wakes and doesn't and Ollie is by her side. This is how Laurel Lance dies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remnants of You and Me

**Author's Note:**

> My way of coping with _Eleven-Fifty-Nine_
> 
> You can also read this story and comment on it on Livejournal [here](http://navaan.livejournal.com/277755.html). Feel free to friend or contact me there.

She wakes and doesn't. Her head isn't clear. She wakes and nods of again and wakes and sees Ollie bend over her and hears him whisper things and take her hand, hover beside her bed, and there are nurses and then she is gone and wakes and is gone and wakes again. The pain makes her hazy. The stab wound itches and hurts and whatever it is they have her on, it's not enough to make the pain go away. Her insides are on fire.

Oliver is there and they talk. She feels clear headed then. Calm.

Darkh nearly got her - to hurt her dad, to hurt Ollie, to hurt all of them. But it doesn't matter. She's still here and Oliver is still here. For some very hazy reason that's what's important.

It's probably because she already thought him lost once, back in their days of messed up innocence.

“You've always been the love of my life,” she admits through the calm that comes with the pain killers. It's true and it's more complicated than that and she's sure she would never even utter the words if it weren't for the hospital bed and the shocked expression on his handsome face. There's Felicity and there's Tommy and there's her family and all the things they've been through between them. And perhaps it's that she's been close to death or that she already lost so much, but while she tiredly smiles at Ollie and is glad that they are both still here after all, she still feels that something is missing. Or that she's missing something about this.

“Laurel,” he breathes.

 _Laurel_ , she thinks. _Only dad ever called me Laurel._

 _Sara_ , she thinks. _Brave little punk sister. Sister. Voice in my ear. Partner at my back._

Faces swim in her field of vision. Felicity and Thea and Sara, all bleeding together and changing. Voice in her ear. Calling her name. She's slipping. She doesn't know it, until her body convulses and her breath gets stuck in her throat. Muscles lock up and she chokes.

Oliver calls her name. From the darkness. She can't see.

Oliver.

Always Oliver. Even after everything, always Oliver.

“Dinah!” The slap is hard and painful. Her cheek burns and her eyes fly open. She takes a painful breath and it's all gone, falls away. There is no slipping between unconscious darkness and painful wakefulness. When she looks up, the first thing she recognizes is the red hair and the wheel chair. The dream feels so real still that she want to ask how her father is going to cope with her dying, how her sister and mom will take it. 

Tears form in her eyes. The emotions are all real and still there.

Sister.

Sister she never had.

Oliver who is dead

Dinah who is alive. Dinah who is her.

“Barbara?”

“Yeah, girlfriend. Sorry for slapping you around,” her partner Oracle, Barbara Gordon, tells her from above. She's leaning down to look her right in the face and there is a worried crease on her brow. Dinah knows there are tears on her face and it's all still so clear and so painful and she wants it back – and not.

“What was that?” she gasps out, trying to focus on her body, her breathing. Barbara takes her hand and squeezes.

“Poison Ivy. You went under hours ago, but just now we thought we were losing you.”

Another female voice says: “Your breathing was slowing down, Miss Lance.” Leslie Tompkins looks grim and Dinah realizes for the first time that she's lying on a hard surface of an examination table. She just woke up from death. Just like in the dream.

“Dinah,” she corrects, but the name _Laurel_ is on the tip of her tongue. She swallows it down and tries to focus. “I had a scary dream. So real. God, it still feels real.”

“We don't know how she did it. But it was a bit like she made a plant that had the same effect as the Black Mercy and combined it with Scarecrows fear gas effects. I can't explain it yet. My best guess is that you see what you want to see most mixed in with your worst fears.”

“Wow,” she mumbles and tries to move and process and move on. Her stomach feels bruised. When she moves awkwardly, she remembers being punched at some point. She remembers a knife piercing her guts. Oliver there, but not hers. Family, perfect and broken. Friends and tension. She looks up and meets Barbara's worried gaze. That's real. That grounds her. She smiles tiredly, feeling the memory of the knife fall away. “It's so good to see you Barbara.” And she's still half Laurel, half caught in dream that is a dream and nightmare, half caught in the moment of death. But Babs hand in hers feels real.

“Never letting my best girl down.”

“Thanks,” she says and then she jumps down and forward and hugs Barbara, impulsively and just like the Dinah she remembers. Oliver's surprised expression from when she told him he was the love of her life is still so real in her mind. She feels like crying. She's alive and breathing.

He's the one who is dead.

Stupid, stupid man.

She really wants to cry.

But there's no time. She's going to compensate by letting Poison Ivy know exactly what she thinks of her games.

Barbara pats her shoulder and smiles her typical wry smile as she disengages from the hug. “Now, now. Let's get you home.”

She moves so nimbly around the room in her chair, just like Felicity had from one day to the other like she'd done it for years. But this is Barbara, Oracle, once Batgirl – the voice in her ear that guides her, the partner at her back who got her out when she needed it. Babs, who saves her as much, as she saves her.

Laurel never had a friend like this. Perhaps she'd hoped to be a friend like that to others. Perhaps because Dinah missed the voice in her ear. “Yeah,” she says and tries to finally shake the last tendrils of that other life, that dream. “Yeah, home sounds nice. Let's go home. I'll cook you dinner,” she sing-songs.

Babs grimaces and then smiles.

Dinah feels more grounded immediately.

Outside Gotham is waiting to throw the next threat their way. And Poison Ivy is still at large. 

She's still missing something. But this time she knows what it is.

Green Arrow is still dead and she's had a glimpse of a life where he isn't. _Pretty Bird,_ she remembers him whisper in her ear like the other Oliver never had even once. _Come with me,_ the voice whispers now.

 _Sorry, Ollie,_ Dinah thinks. _No can do. I miss you, but this is where I belong. I'm alive and I miss you. It's not my time yet._

“Are you alright?” Babs asks from the door and she realizes that while Barbara is nearly out the room, she hasn't moved yet. 

“Yeah, right as rain, girlfriend.” She grins. She means it, too. 

She'll always love that silly man, but she' not ready to lose herself in dreams. She's not ready to give up.

This is her life and Dinah Lance is not through with it yet.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on [tumblr ](http://navaan.tumblr.com/). This fic has a post [on there](http://navaan.tumblr.com/post/145216861004/fanfiction-arrowdc-comics-remnants-of-you-and) in case you want to comment/review/reblog there. [My ask box](http://navaan.tumblr.com/ask) is open if you have questions.


End file.
